Later, James and art director Louise Dorton shared four Excellence in Production Design Award nominations from the Art Directors Guild for their contributions on Voyager.

Outside of Star Trek, James was an art director on the 1960s/1970s game show Let's Make a Deal and the original Battlestar Galactica. He was also art director on the Academy Award-nominated dramatic film Silkwood (featuring Jim Beaver, Bill Cobbs, Graham Jarvis, and Bruce McGill) and the acclaimed historical drama The Beast of War (featuring Erick Avari) and was production designer on the action/adventure film Getting Even, starring Edward Laurence Albert.

In the credits of the various Star Trek series he has worked on, James is usually listed as Richard D. James. This has caused some confusion among fans of electronic music artist Aphex Twin, who shares the name.